Senate Ethics Committee Chair Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., is pursued by reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, May 12, 2011, after speaking on the Senate floor about former Nevada Sen. John Ensign.

WASHINGTON — From the time Sen. John Ensign went public with his extramarital affair in 2009 and his resignation from the Senate on May 3, Nevadans learned much about the once-rising star’s stunning fall.

But Senate Ethics Committee investigators, who deposed 72 witnesses and pored over half a million pages of documents as they probed potentially criminal acts to cover up Ensign’s dalliance, unearthed details previously unknown.

The report, released Thursday, reads like a juicy drugstore paperback. It chronicles the slow implosion of Ensign and his inner circle through lusts indulged, friendships betrayed and cover-up conspiracies wrought as he carried on an affair with campaign staffer Cynthia Hampton, and then tried to shuttle her and her husband, Doug Hampton, the highest-ranking staffer in his Senate office and Ensign’s best friend, into jobs that would get them out the door.

Here are six new revelations about the affair and alleged cover-up contained in the 75-page report:

Why the families were living together

The Ensigns and the Hamptons were close: Cynthia Hampton and Darlene Ensign were high school friends and the couples regularly vacationed together. But why were they living together?

Shortly after Ensign pulled Hampton in to take over the administrative half of the chief-of-staff duties — the legislative and political work was left to John Lopez, the star witness of the Ethics Committee’s report — the Hamptons’ house was burgled. Burglars broke through the front door and stole jewelry, electronics — and Cynthia’s peace of mind.

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I am of the opinion that Sen. Ensign simply had to much of a ‘good thing’! This is what happens when you truly take for granted that you can do anything that you want to do and not have to pay a price!